


Ceremony

by kittybenzedrine



Series: Timelines [16]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Handfasting, Weddings, religious ceremony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-04 06:26:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12765051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittybenzedrine/pseuds/kittybenzedrine
Summary: Ren and Leo have a very anticlimactic marriage ceremony for a pretty stupid reason._____All pieces of the Timelines series are standalones and can be read without context.





	Ceremony

Neither of them want to get married, but they do it out of necessity. Leo could easily slaughter each of these men surrounding them, could dispatch all of them without getting a single scratch. But they're priests, good men from the religion Leo follows. He refuses to lie to them when they ask if he and Ren and married, and refused to kill them if they've done no harm.

She's agreed to come do a religious ceremony with him. Leo hasn't done it since right after his wife died, well over a hundred years ago. It's long overdue, but the priests will not let her accompany him if they're not married. The water ceremony requires them to be bare, and it's wrong for an unmarried man and woman to see each other's bodies, according to customs. Ren thinks it's bullshit, as does Leo. They've been fucking for a good long while now and are about as married folk can get without a ceremony. They haven't been smited by Leo's gods yet either, so they must not care. The priests are adamant and she really doesn't wanna fucking get married, but she's already agreed to come with him and won't back out now.

One of the priests knows the marriage customs of where Ren's from, thankfully. It is a quicker marriage than the three day ceremony required by the church. A simple handfasting, with just a ribbon and words. Fewer words if they don't believe in any deities. Ren doesn't believe in anything, and Leo's set of gods aren't recognized in the religion her customs come from. It won't take much time at all, hopefully.

Really, the longest part of it is waiting for someone to find a pink ribbon. It must be pink. The color stands for love, peace, harmony, all the things that make up a healthy and beautiful marriage. The color of unity. If it is a second marriage, it's allowed to be other colors like white, lilac, or blue, but never red. Red is considered a sinful color where Ren's from, lustful in a bad sense, fiery, negative. Never a good way to have a marriage. The irony of her being in a maroon dress doesn't escape her.

The priest drones out the beginning in the common language, mistranslating it from the original, but Ren bites her tongue. The sentiment is just the same. He has Ren and Leo take each other's left hands, like they're shaking them. One end of the ribbon is knotted around her wrist, wrapped three times around their joined hands, and tied off on his wrist. Next, they clasp their right hands above their lefts. They listen to him speak a little longer and then take their vows, repeated after the priest.

He speaks in the common language; she speaks it to Leo in her native tongue.  _I promise I will always love you, until the end of our days. I will never leave your side until this world is through with my soul. I will be with you even if our fields will not grow, if your body grows weak, if my body is barren. With my hand in yours and our ribbon as witness, I give you my heart to keep._

It throws the priest off when she speaks, but he waits until she's finishes. He has Leo repeat it, and though she can't understand much of Leo's native language, she picks it choice words. Catches "love" easily enough, he's told her he loves her so often in his language.

They have no rings, so as soon as it's started, it's finished. Ren and Leo are still surrounded by the holy men, but they pass congratulations at the two now. Ren untangles their right hands and lightly unties the ribbon from around his wrist, keeps it between her fingers. There's still a little bit left to the ceremony.

"Kiss my knuckles," she instructs. He raises a brow at her, but leans down and does it with no questions. "Now untie my end with your right hand, and let me kiss yours." Again, he does so without a single peep. She gently takes the end from his hand and unwraps the ribbon from their still-joined left hands, and just barely manages to tie it around her waist for safe keeping. Women are always in charge of the ribbon once the ceremony is over.

With the requirements met, they're allowed to proceed and do what they came here to do. Leo undresses in the small room, stows his clothes away. He kneels in the artificial waterfall, and she follows suit, leaving the ribbon tied to her dress across the room as she gets on her knees in the water.

He murmurs a short prayer in his mother tongue, and that's the only thing she hears from him for the next hour. The water cascades over their bodies, warm from the heat of the summer. She keeps her head down to keep water out of her eyes, and mulls over her thoughts while he silently prays.

 

 

 

 

Later, redressed and drying his hair, he doesn't make eye contact. "Swore I'd never get married again, not after she died."

"It doesn't have to count if you don't want it to." Ren gets as much water out of her hair as she can, not wanting to soak the back of her dress with it. She's not particularly keen on being married either, but she won't take it back if he doesn't. Meant every word of those vows.

He makes a sound of acknowledgement, but says nothing more. He still says nothing once they've returned home and he spots the ribbon tied up in their closet, out of the way, but still there nonetheless.

Leo won't take it back if she doesn't.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated!
> 
> I have [my blog](http://iwillpooponthefloor.tumblr.com) on tumblr, if you'd like to check that out. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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